door and placedher hand upon the lock to prevent any intrusion until he returned.Her caution seemed to be justified a moment later, for a heavier butstealthier footstep halted outside. The handle of the door was turned,but she resisted it with the fullest strength of her small hand until avoice, which startled her, called in a hurried whisper:--
"Open quick, 'tis I."
She stepped back quickly, flung the door open, and beheld Somers on thethreshold!
The astonishment, agitation, and above all, the awkward confusion ofthis usually self-possessed and ready man, was so unlike him, and withalso painful, that Grace hurried to put an end to it, and for an instantforgot her own surprise at seeing him. She smiled assuringly, andextended her hand.
"Grace--Miss Nevil--I beg your pardon--I didn't imagine"--he began witha forced laugh. "I mean, of course--I cannot--but"--He stopped, and thenassuming a peculiar expression, said: "But what are YOU doing here?"
At any other moment the girl would have resented the tone, which wasas new to her as his previous agitation, but in her presentself-consciousness her situation seemed to require some explanation."I came here," she said, "to see Mr. Rushbrook on business. Yourbusiness--OUR business," she added, with a charming smile, using for thefirst time the pronoun that seemed to indicate their unity and interest,and yet fully aware of a vague insincerity in doing so.
"Our BUSINESS?" he repeated, ignoring her gentler meaning with a changedemphasis and a look of suspicion.
"Yes," said Grace, a little impatiently. "Mr. Leyton thought he oughtto write to my uncle something positive as to your prospects with Mr.Rushbrook, and"--
"You came here to inquire?" said the young man, sharply.
"I came here to stop any inquiry," said Grace, indignantly. "I camehere to say I was satisfied with what you had confided to me of Mr.Rushbrook's generosity, and that was enough!"
"With what I had confided to you? You dared say that?"
Grace stopped, and instantly faced him. But any indignation she mighthave felt at his speech and manner was swallowed up in the revulsion andhorror that overtook her with the sudden revelation she saw in hiswhite and frightened face. Leyton's strange inquiry, Rushbrook's coldcomposure and scornful acceptance of her own credulousness, came to herin a flash of shameful intelligence. Somers had lied! The insufferablemeanness of it! A lie, whose very uselessness and ignobility haddefeated its purpose--a lie that implied the basest suspicion of herown independence and truthfulness--such a lie now stood out as plainlybefore her as his guilty face.
"Forgive my speaking so rudely," he said with a forced smile and attemptto recover his self-control, "but you have ruined me unless you denythat I told you anything. It was a joke--an extravagance that I hadforgotten; at least, it was a confidence between you and me that youhave foolishly violated. Say that you misunderstood me--that it was afancy of your own. Say anything--he trusts you--he'll believe anythingyou say."
"He HAS believed me," said Grace, almost fiercely, turning upon him withthe paper that Rushbrook had given her in her outstretched hand. "Readthat!"
He read it. Had he blushed, had he stammered, had he even kept up hisformer frantic and pitiable attitude, she might at that supreme momenthave forgiven him. But to her astonishment his face changed, hishandsome brow cleared, his careless, happy smile returned, his gracefulconfidence came back--he stood before her the elegant, courtly, andaccomplished gentleman she had known. He returned her the paper, andadvancing with extended hand, said triumphantly:--
"Superb! Splendid! No one but a woman could think of that! And only onewoman achieve it. You have tricked the great Rushbrook. You are indeedworthy of being a financier's wife!"
"No," she said passionately, tearing up the paper and throwing it at hisfeet; "not as YOU understand it--and never YOURS! You have debased andpolluted everything connected with it, as you would have debased andpolluted ME. Out of my presence that you are insulting--out of the roomof the man whose magnanimity you cannot understand!"
The destruction of the guarantee apparently stung him more than thewords that accompanied it. He did not relapse again into his formershamefaced terror, but as a malignant glitter came into his eyes, heregained his coolness.
"It may not be so difficult for others to understand, Miss Nevil," hesaid, with polished insolence, "and as Bob Rushbrook's generosity topretty women is already a matter of suspicion, perhaps you are wise todestroy that record of it."
"Coward!" said Grace, "stand aside and let me pass!" She swept by himto the door. But it opened upon Rushbrook's re-entrance. He stood foran instant glancing at the pair, and then on the fragments of the paperthat strewed the floor. Then, still holding the door in his hand, hesaid quietly:--
"One moment before you go, Miss Nevil. If this is the result of anymisunderstanding as to the presence of another woman here, in companywith Mr. Somers, it is only fair to him to say that that woman is hereas a friend of MINE, not of his, and I alone am responsible."
Grace halted, and turned the cold steel of her proud eyes on the twomen. As they rested on Rushbrook they quivered slightly. "I can alreadybear witness," she said coldly, "to the generosity of Mr. Rushbrook ina matter which then touched me. But there certainly is no necessityfor him to show it now in a matter in which I have not the slightestconcern."
As she swept out of the room and was received in the respectable shadowof the waiting James, Rushbrook turned to Somers.
"And I'M afraid it won't do--for Leyton saw you," he said curtly. "Now,then, shut that door, for you and I, Jack Somers, have a word to say toeach other."
What that word was, and how it was said and received, is not a part ofthis record. But it is told that it was the beginning of that mightyIliad, still remembered of men, which shook the financial camps of SanFrancisco, and divided them into bitter contending parties. For when itbecame known the next day that Somers had suddenly abandoned Rushbrook,and carried over to a powerful foreign capitalist the secret methods,and even, it was believed, the LUCK of his late employer, it was certainthat there would be war to the knife, and that it was no longer astruggle of rival enterprise, but of vindictive men.
CHAPTER VII
For a year the battle between the Somers faction and the giant butsolitary Rushbrook raged fiercely, with varying success. I grieve to saythat the proteges and parasites of Maecenas deserted him in a body; nay,they openly alleged that it was the true artistic nature and refinementof Somers that had always attracted them, and that a man like Rushbrook,who bought pictures by the yard,--equally of the unknown strugglingartist and the famous masters,--was no true patron of Art. Rushbrookmade no attempt to recover his lost prestige, and once, when squeezedinto a tight "corner," and forced to realize on his treasures, he putthem up at auction and the people called them "daubs;" their rageknew no bounds. It was then that an unfettered press discovered thatRushbrook never was a Maecenas at all, grimly deprecated his assumptionof that title, and even doubted if he were truly a millionaire. It wasat this time that a few stood by him--notably, the mill inventor fromSiskyou, grown plethoric with success, but eventually ground between theupper and nether millstone of the Somers and Rushbrook party. Miss Nevilhad returned to the Atlantic States with Mrs. Leyton. While rumorshad played freely with the relations of Somers and the Signora as thepossible cause of the rupture between him and Rushbrook, no mention hadever been made of the name of Miss Nevil.
It was raining heavily one afternoon, when Mr. Rushbrook drove from hisoffice to his San Francisco house. The fierce struggle in which he wasengaged left him little time for hospitality, and for the last two weekshis house had been comparatively deserted. He passed through theempty rooms, changed in little except the absence of some valuablemonstrosities which had gone to replenish his capital. When he reachedhis bedroom, he paused a moment at the open door.
"James!"
"Yes, sir," said James, appearing out of the shadow.
"What are you waiting for?"
"I thought you might be wanting something, sir."
> "You were waiting there this morning; you were in the ante-room of mystudy while I was writing. You were outside the blue room while I satat breakfast. You were at my elbow in the drawing-room late last night.Now, James," continued Mr. Rushbrook, with his usual grave directness,"I don't intend to commit suicide; I can't afford it, so keep your timeand your rest for yourself--you want it--that's a good fellow."
"Yes, sir."
"James!"
"Yes, sir."
Rushbrook extended his hand. There was that faint, rare smile on hishandsome mouth, for which James would at any time have laid down hislife. But he only silently grasped his master's hand, and the twomen